


Pretty in Pink and Cobra Man Meet Mycroft

by Tammany



Series: The Sussex Downs [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, First Meetings, Gen, Gender-swapped Aziraphale., Mash-up, Sherlock and Good Omens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-31 23:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20248780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Ok, this is a sequel to "Seersucker and Madras." Just enough people wondered what would happen on the Sussex Downs that I found myself wondering how it would go, too. I do not have ANY idea how long I will carry this on, but I see at least a chapter or two more, as all the chicks come home to roost.Be aware that Aziraphale is wearing a female body in this. If you want to know why, read "Seersucker and Madras."This is just the introduction of Mycroft and his friendly neighborhood Celestials. Have fun.





	Pretty in Pink and Cobra Man Meet Mycroft

The weather was beautiful. Mycroft found that highly suspicious. This was, after all, England, and England has standards to uphold—even the Sussex estate, known in the family for balmy weather, clean breezes, and a view of the ocean over the wild downs.

“Come, come. There has to be a storm front building somewhere,” he muttered, glowering. He was out of sorts, out here in the country, performing a duty he was unsure of, dressed in what, for him, was insanely informal gear: chinos and an oxford shirt, with boating shoes and little more.

The weather was too warm. The sun too bright. The duties of the day too unsettling.

He stood at the top of the stairway that led down the hillside, from the big house to the cottage, from the cottage to the sea. Greg Lestrade, seeing it for the first time that afternoon, had whistled low and sworn at length, before saying, “Jesus, Mycroft, does your family do anything by halves?”

“Never,” he’d admitted. “Not if we can help it.”

Mummy and Father hardly ever came down here anymore…they had rather shunned the seaside properties ever since Musgrave had burned down. For years, Mycroft had let the place out to holiday tourists, sending in workmen and cleaners every winter to keep the place up to snuff. Distant members of the family would, sometimes, appeal to him for a few weeks by the seaside, and he seldom said no.

Now Sherlock was requesting life-time access to the cottage as his permanent residence, and Mycroft was here to prepare the way…

The wind ruffled the remains of his forelock, tossing the hair over his brows. He tried to rake it back, feeling foolish: he was reaching the age when smart men started shaving themselves bald on purpose to suggest that nature’s own process was their own clever idea. And yet, he’d been unable to steel himself for it. The current result was too close to a comb-over for comfort…

He started ticking off the things to be done, and was making good progress when Mycroft saw two strangers marching toward the sea from the west side of the property.

They made an odd couple. To the fore was a plump blonde woman in a loose linen robe sufficiently translucent as to reveal a pink plaid swimming two piece below. She had the sort of figure that deserved the term Mycroft had heard applied to Mummy: a pleasant armful. Busty, plush-hipped, willow-waisted, limber in spite of lush curves. Her hair was a riot of curls shaved close at the nape, moderate at the sides, and gone feral on top, where it tumbled in a spiralized fringe that cascaded into her eyes. She wore round, wire-framed glasses tinted pink, and a ridiculous floppy hat with a pink plaid hat-band and a fat artificial cabbage rose. She was carrying a pink plaid beach bag from which peeked one pink plaid towel, and one jet black towel. She seemed to glow with a roseate hue, and the sun shone off her white straw hat and her curls, seeming to form a halo against the bright blue sky.

Behind her came an animated serpent of a man, so skinny it seemed he ought to blow away in the breeze off the sea. He walked as though his joints had joints, and they had further joints, and all of the joints were in subtle motion, swaying like a cobra in front of snake charmer’s basket, hips describing complex three-dimensional arcs. He was clad in men’s spandex swimming trunks cut more like biking shorts than anything, topped with a black spandex tank top over which he wore an ankle-length button-front abaya with a high band neckline. It was open at the front, with open slits up the sides. His pale skin flashed as he walked along. He was of sepulchral thinness, with a gaunt face, hooked nose, strong, lean jaw, and eyes hidden behind severe black glasses. His hair was a brushed-up cockscomb of deep burgundy black…ginger, but a world away from Mycroft’s own bright carrot-brown.

The path was a public beach access. But, on principle, Mycroft felt it right to ensure the couple knew that they were crossing private property. No one liked break-ins, and he owed it to the neighbors.

Which was just an excuse. The couple aroused the most extreme curiosity in him.

“Hello?” he called, raising one arm. “I say—hello?”

There was no response. Pretty-in-plaid (and pink) trotted along, contented in her progress, the human cobra slithering along behind her like doom personified.

“Oi! Head’s up,” Mycroft called, this time using his “hop-it” voice, with which he rattled subordinates.

Still no reaction.

With a fierce grumble Mycroft broke into a lope, sloping along the way toward the access path. It was an odd feeling, reviving memories of boyhood visits before Eurus was old enough to trigger fears. The slate of the house path gave way to the sand and chalk of the access path. The heather and gorse and yellow broom were alive with bees, with more still humming an enchantment in a little elderberry that shaded the path at the crest of the hill, before it went down to the shore.

“Oi! You lot!” He cringed inside, knowing he sounded one step short of demanding “the fockin’ kids get orf ‘is fockin' lawrn.” But what had started as principle had turned into something that felt necessary, and he waved, shouting into the wind coming off the shore. “Oi! Hold up!”

They heard him at last, and came to a stop in the shade of a wind-warped pine.

“Yes?” The pink and plaid vision smiled at him as he panted up to them—a radiant smile. Her glasses were barely tinted, though the frames were a vivid matching pink, and she seemed to shine. She wasn’t young—but she had the kind of glowing charm Mummy occasionally exhibited, a charm that caused men around the world to flutter near her and fetch her drinks to her eternal confounded amusement.

“It’s not as though they don’t know I’m married,” she would say later, in bewildered delight. “I mean, really! Why would I leave your father for the sort of men who’d ignore honor entirely?” And she’d pat Father’s hand with fond affection, and he’d glow back at her—and wink at Mycroft over her head, as charmed by her as all the men who fluttered around, one more moth around the flame, but _her _moth.

This woman was similarly blessed. She seemed near fifty, but a sweet and pretty fifty, with clear, fair skin and a shield-shaped Celtic face and masses of curly hair fair as daisy petals.

“Is there some kind of problem?” The cobra was no less dour and imposing close up as he’d been at a distance. His thin body was almost alien—almost. Not…quite. Almost. His face was sculpted like an Edward Gorey character, and his high brows arched up over little black glasses that hid his eyes entirely.

“Nothing wrong, no. You’re on a public access path down to the shore, and that’s perfectly all right,” Mycroft said. “But we try to make sure people know that while the access path’s public, it crosses over private land. Sometimes people don’t know, and think people’s homes are parkland. So we try to spread the word."

Cobra-man nodded. “Oh, aye. Know that one, all right. Can’t trust ‘em to behave, can you? We ‘ad one lead ‘is kids over to the rose hedge by the pool and tell ‘em to pee there. Which is just mischief, and no harm done, but me Angel was swimmin’ at the time, and she’s a lot nicer than me. She was also starkers at the time. Bit of a shock for all concerned.” And he looked toward the pink woman with such love that even jet-black glasses couldn’t hide the warmth. Then he looked back and held out one hand. “Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley. And Angel. We own th’ place next door. You’re the owner? We haven’t met anyone but renters till now.”

“I’m the oldest son of the family that owns,” Mycroft said. “I’m down to help my younger brother sort things and prepare. He’s planning on moving down into the cottage. Or the big house. We’re not yet sure. So my…. So a friend of mine and I are down seeing to things. Sherlock will join us later.”

Angel perked up at the naming of names. “Oooh! Sherlock? Is there any chance that would be Sherlock Holmes?” Her eye shone behind her glasses, and her smile blossomed with delight. “He’s _fun_! And all that deducing—it’s like a _magic trick_!” There was a wild and wicked glee in her voice, and she bounced eagerly on her toes, bursting with delight.

“Angellllll,” Mr. Crowley said, and gestured—a very spousal sort of gesture suggesting she rein it in and shut it. Kindly, but admonishing. He turned back to Mycroft. “You’ll have to forgive her. She’s a giddy thing.” The note of the delivery was fond to the point of besotted.

“I am not giddy,” she snipped. “It’s not my fault you’re a so curmudgeonly, Crowley.” But her tone was no less besotted than his.

“Married, then, are you?” Mycroft deduced.

The two both blushed—she flaming hot pink on her fair cheeks, her companion dark on darker skin.

“Not as such,” she said, fluttering. “There are…um…family complications?” She glanced at her lover, who shrugged and added, “Bit of a feud. Montague and Capulet sort of stuff. Seemed for the best to keep it all unofficial for now.”

So—married in all but name. And utterly infatuated with each other.

For no reason he could determine, Mycroft found himself almost disappointed—and the disappointment left him confused. He was beyond happy with Greg. Equally confusing, he could not decide which of the two he felt that odd pang of jealousy over, and that was just wrong. He’d never doubted his sexuality since his early teens, and yet that shining, pretty-pink woman appealed to him in ways he barely understood. He could imagine curling into her side, being utterly content with her…

To cover his embarrassment he said, quickly, “It’s not my business anyway. And, yes, Mrs…. Miss…”

“Oh, Angel Z. Fell,” she said, bright and chipper. “I’m the owner of A.Z. Fell’s, the bookstore in Soho. But Crowley and I moved down here last year, after a bit of a life-changing event. I must say, I think I’m going to have to close the store. I can’t seem to train the new staff how to avoid selling my best pieces…” She sounded disgusted.

Her lover looked over her head, and tapped his nose at Mycroft, sharing the silent amusement.

“Angel doesn’t like to see her best stock walk out of the store,” he said, his laugh silent but potent.

“What’s the point of building up good stock if you’re going to go and sell it,” she said, tartly. “I mean, really. When _I_ was running the place I could mostly chase them away. Odd business hours. Off scents. Irrational shelving system. And if they absolutely forced me, I could occasionally be a wee bit brusque. It was the rare customer got out of the place with a purchase in my time! But the new hires just can’t seem to get a grip on the basics.”

Mycroft felt his heart give a sudden lurch toward bisexuality. He could love this woman…

He struggled with his own enchantment. “I understand entirely,” he said, though in fact he didn’t. “Look, I have to go up to the house soon. Sherlock will be arriving any time, and my partner’s making lunch. Why don’t you come up and join us after your swim? Miss Fell, you can meet Sherlock—and, yes, he’s _that _Sherlock. And Mr. Crowley, I’ve brought down crates of decent drink. If you’re going to be out of London for long, you want to be prepared. We can share beer, or cider, or a number of hard liquors.”

“Oh, just call me Angel,” the pink woman said. “And we’d be delighted.” And when her partner gave an amused snort she elbowed him not so subtly in the ribs and said, sternly, “We will, and you know it.”

Eyebrows flew up over the glasses frames. A dour mouth spread in a fond grin. “Yes, Angel. Whatever you say, Angel.” Then he leaned down and pushed back her hat brim, and kissed her on the brow. “You’re very bossy, Angel…”

Love, Mycroft thought. It shone off them. They glowed with it.

“I must be on my way, then,” he said.

“But you never gave us your name,” Angel said.

“Mycroft,” he replied. “Mycroft Holmes. My partner’s Greg Lestrade. And, as you know, Sherlock’s coming.”

And he loped up the hill, half-drunk on their affection, confused as hell.

He was a reserved man. A solitary man. What in the name of heaven was he doing inviting them up—and hoping they took him up on the invitation?


End file.
